Beautiful Things
by MissEmRose
Summary: Beautiful things are so easily broken by the world. -NILEY-
1. Chapter 1

The woman sits alone on a park bench one cold January evening. Her breaths come out in long, drawn out wisps, the heat of them causing the air in front of her dried lips foggy. Her fingers are frozen to the point where she can't feel the tips of them but she can't move. Her blue eyes are glassy, trying to drink in as much of the scene as she could. She's confused. There are a million questions running through her head.

_Where am I? _

_When did I get here?_

_How did I get here?_

_What am I doing here?_

_What day is it?_

_What time is it?_

Her eyes blink several times but every time, she sees the same snow, the same leafless trees and the same gloomy sky.

She keeps thinking that she's dreaming because the last thing she remembers is being at home in her apartment. She was studying for an exam she had the next day and trying to get her dog to stop barking, all the while trying to ignore the splitting headache that was slowly developing.

That's all she remembers. Flash forward and she's sitting here on this bench, freezing her ass off. She's determined it's just a hallucination, which must be why she can't move.

Her eyes dart over the landscape again and she can't deny it's beautiful, much like the man she's been watching for quite some time now. He's leaning down in front of a little girl, both of their faces sporting wide smiles. The man has curly hair and she can't tell if it's her fascination with curly hair that's made her watch him for so long. It could be the adorable toothless smile of the little girl or the pearls of laughter coming out of her mouth as the man spun her around.

She can't tell what it is about the pair of them but she can't take her eyes away from them for more than a couple seconds.

Then he stands and scoops the girl up in his arms and to her immense surprise, he starts walking towards her. She starts to feel anxious because she'd seen him catch her stare a couple times. But something just tells her that his intentions are not to harm her. Maybe he just wanted to introduce himself because after all, they were the only people in the snowed out park.

She can feel her cheeks light up as he got closer and she blamed it on the cold although she knew it was not really the cause.

The man sat down next to her with the little girl on his lap and sighed all long and content.

A few minutes of silence later he turns to her and she notes that he has adorable brown eyes, the kind she wouldn't mind staring into all day.

"You ready to go, Miley?"

The question, so simple and unchallenging still manages to unnerve her.

"H-how do yo- you know m-my name?" she sputters.

He blinks, the surprise on her face mirrored on his for a second before it clears. He smiles a delicate smile and reaches for her hand which twitches at the contact but she does nothing more as she watches him.

"Because I'm your husband."

Her breaths come out in short, shallow breaths now. "You are?"

The man nods slowly as his fingers tighten around her clasped hands. "Come on, baby, let's go home."

She doesn't know this man. But then why is that she lets him hold onto her hand and let him lead her wherever?

**So I don't know what this is. I started watching the Silver Linings Playbook one night and stopped it after ten minutes to write this. (Amazing movie, btw.)**

**Lately my mind's been all over the place with writing. I don't know, do you guys like this? I know its super confusing, I haven't figured out all the details myself but since I just cannot seem to write anything remotely good for Back To the Start, I thought I'll post this. I've also got a second and third part written so let me know if you would be interested in reading that?**

'**Kay, I'm out. Peace.**

**Review?**

**P.S. Quote in the summary is from Cassandra Clare. **


	2. Chapter 2

Night has fallen and the city has gone to sleep and a man stands in the quiet of his home, staring out the window. It's quiet and no one's on the street except an occasional car that would pass by. The streets were covered in the snow that had been coming down persistently for the past couple days.

Even while looking at the serene scene in front of him, he's tense. There are so many things in the back of his head that he's worrying about without even realizing he's doing it. It's a habit that he'd give an arm and leg to get rid of.

He can hear the soft barks echoing in through the door of the living room followed by two sets of laughter. Sometimes he wished that dog would just shut up and give him some peace but whenever it would make her smile, it was making up for it.

He tenses as cool fingers brush under the woolen sweater that he's wearing, but the smell of her perfume makes him calm again. The slender fingers continue to caress a patch of skin on his left hip and he feels her presence behind him.

He can always feel her presence. Even when she's not around. It's what calms him down; when he imagines she's standing next to him, doing exactly what she was right now.

His head turns sideways so he can see her face. Her big blue eyes are what had drawn him to her the first time he'd laid eyes on her. Her long brown hair sticking in a hundred different directions had only made her look more beautiful. The mascara under her eyes had been distorted, like she'd been crying but even that, in a sad, melancholy way, had added to her beauty.

Now she had her hair up in a pony tail, her eyes were mascara free and they twinkled in happiness instead of misery but she was still as beautiful, if not more than she had that day that he'd first seen her; that day that he'd fallen in love with her.

"You Ok, Nick?" came her voice, raspy and sexy as ever.

He smiled, thankful that he had her around. He nodded; he didn't like to see her upset and if he was upset, so was she.

"Good," she said, returning his smile, "Because Eva's been nagging me to ask you to come play her that song that you guys made up about bunnies. And then we got to have dinner and drop Eva off before my sister has a cow and calls the cops on us."

"I'll be right there," he replies.

She nods and turns to leave, but his fingers reach out to grasp at those slender fingers that had calmed him down only a few minutes ago. She stops and watches as his other hand holds her cheek while his eyes stare at her with so much love, one of the many emotions she's seen hiding behind them.

His lips yearn for hers. He'd seen how dry they'd looked earlier and had wanted nothing more than to reach out and fix that for her but then he'd been distracted by the little girl clinging onto his leg.

He made up for it now. His lips found hers in a sweet kiss. It wasn't urgent or demanding and he loved it when he got to kiss her like this.

They part and she places her hand on his chest, giving him that smile that he loved.

He hated it when she frowned and he hated it when he knew it was him that was making her frown and he was doing nothing about it. It made him want to throw something outside the window or punch a wall.

Then came the caress of her soft fingers and just like that, the anxiety flooded away.

The same fingers now reached for his hands and tugged on them and he followed her obediently like she was his captor, which is many cases, she was.

**Hi. :)**

**So, just wanted to clarify that the real story begins with the next chapter. Also, no one is famous in this story. **

**Kay, bye. **

**Review?**


	3. Chapter 3

**The first time they met;**

* * *

"Here you go, man."

Nick looked at the beer and French fries that was placed in front of him and then at the man that was slipping into the seat in front of him.

"I asked for onions rings, dumbass."

"Chill out, dude. They were out of onion rings."

"Well, I don't want French fries either."

"Alright then don't eat it! Gosh, why are you getting your panties in a knot over fries, did you take your meds today?"

Nick's eyes flash up at his friend, Joe, and the look in his eyes made him back down. He was clearly annoyed at something and Joe knew what it was like when Nick got angry. To say the least, it wasn't very pretty.

Nick sighs, grabbing his beer and taking a large swig of it. "I just had a really bad day."

"What happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

Joe resisted the urge to roll his eyes, "Fine, then let's talk about me. Remember how I told you about my boss; I swear she's sending me mixed signals! One minute she's all flirty and then…"

Nick took another swig of his beer, his eyes moving past Joe as he surveyed the bar. It looked pretty much the same as it did every other day. He doesn't know what he's searching for but what he does know is that he wished Joe would stop talking about fucking his boss and just do it so they could move on and not need to talk about it every single day.

Somewhere in the middle of Joe's story, Nick's eyes land on a table behind him. A woman sits in it alone. Her hair is rugged, like maybe she'd run her fingers through it a few too many times. She's slumped against the back of her chair and he can make out the tracks of tears on her cheek. It would not be that uncommon for some depressed chick to come in here and get drunk and cry herself a river but for some reason, he doesn't see her as another one of those cases.

Maybe it's the piercing blue of her eyes that make him stare. He doesn't know.

"…And then I said- dude, are you even listening?!"

"Huh?"

Joe rolls his eyes, "What're you looking at?"

Nick averts his eyes, taking another sip of his beer, "Nothing. Just… continue."

"You weren't even listening, I- what are you looking at-"

Nick's eyes dart back to the blue-eyed beauty and curious as to what Nick was so fascinated by, Joe turns around himself.

"-who is that?"

Nick shrugs, "I don't know."

"Then why are you staring at her?"

Nick can't stop looking at her, "I-I don't know."

"Stop that, it's starting to look creepy!"

"I'm going to go talk to her."

"No, you shouldn't! She seems like she has some major issues. Wait, or maybe that's a good thing. Girls with low self-esteem are easier to pick up, they'll do anything to feel better, plus she is kind of hot, now that I-"

Nick stood up, cutting Joe off, "Dude, you are disgusting."

Joe grinned, "Whatever, tell me you wouldn't hit that."

Nick looked at her once again and then shook his head, looking back at his grinning best friend, "That's beside the point."

"That is exactly the point; you're going over there just to see if she'll let you get into her pants."

"That is not true and this conversation is over."

Joe waves casually as Nick walks past him and towards the girl. He's suddenly nervous as he gets closer to her that she might think he's being a creep like Joe had mentioned, but it was too late to back out now. He sits at the seat across from her only to realize she's staring somewhere else.

"Hey," he says after a deep breath.

The blue-eyed beauty turns her eyes to him finally and after a moment, frowns. "What?"

"You're… crying."

Her frown deepened and then she sat up straight and wiped away her tears although that didn't seem to help hide the fact that she had been crying. The tracks the tears had left on her face were still visible.

"No shit, Sherlock."

Nick couldn't help but laugh. "You're funny."

She stares at him, "Who are you?"

"I'm Nick."

"Yeah, so?"

"I was watching you and I don't know, I had this urge to come over and tell you that whatever it is that you're so sad about, it'll go away."

"You don't even know me."

Nick shrugged.

"My boyfriend cheated on me. With my best friend. Needless to say, he's no longer my boyfriend and she's no longer my best friend. And I-"

She had to stop because she was having trouble breathing through the sobs that had reemerged. Nick felt his fists tighten underneath the table as his emotions were taken over by an unexplainable rage for these people who he didn't even know that had hurt this beautiful woman in front of him, whom he didn't really know either for more than a few minutes. The way her shoulders were shaking with sobs just made him want to protect her.

She sniffs and he watches her eyes dart back to his. "I'm Miley, by the way."

He smiles at her, forcing his fists to open up. "That's a pretty name. And you're a beautiful woman. And that asshole that cheated on you didn't deserve you so you shouldn't be crying over him."

"Thanks… for saying that."

She watched him, taking him in for the first time since he'd come over. He had small brown eyes that reminded her of hot chocolate and her dog Cocoa, her two most favourite things in the world. His curly hair was an out of control mess but she didn't mind that because she loved curly hair.

But she couldn't think much past Patrick, Patrick who had been her love and life for the past three years. She didn't understand how he'd so easily taken their relationship and thrown it outside the window, and with her best friend. She'd lost her boyfriend _and _her best friend in a matter of a couple seconds. She felt so alone.

Miley felt the tears come back up and she didn't want to cry yet again in front of this stranger, so she stood up abruptly. His eyes followed her as she gathered her purse and tied her scarf around her neck.

"I have to go," she pauses, "Thanks, again."

Nick nods, watching her leave silently until her figure disappears beyond the doors. Once she's gone, he kicks himself for not asking for her number. He wonders if he'll ever see her again and silently hopes that he does.

Miley steps outside, pulling her coat closer to shield herself from the cold. She pulls her phone outside of her pocket to see if she's got any more pathetic messages from Patrick begging for her to let him explain.

She opens her inbox up and is surprised to see that there are no messages from Patrick, just her sister and a couple co-workers. She checks her contacts but there is no contact by the name of Patrick.

She frowns, wondering why there was no sign of Patrick on her phone, he'd been calling and texting her constantly ever since she'd found out, but yet there was no sign of any of that. She racked her brain trying to remember if she'd been the one to delete them but she couldn't.

She shook her head as she arrived at the steps leading up to the apartment building where she lived with her sister. She took the elevator up to the third floor and stopped at the second door to the left. She rummaged for her keys in her jacket pocket and opened the door.

"Hey, you're home," said her sister, looking up from the television.

Miley nodded, shutting the door behind her and hanging her jacket up. "Hey."

"Eva was waiting up for you but I finally had to put her to sleep a while ago."

"That's Ok."

"And will you please get that dog of yours to stop barking? It's driving me crazy."

"I told you, just feed him and he'll shut up."

"I did and then he fell asleep, thank God. There's some dinner for you by the microwave, you can heat it up."

"Thanks," Miley says, walking towards the kitchen.

"Where were you for so long anyways?"

Miley pauses, trying to answer the question. She frowns, trying to think of the answer. Where had she been? She remembered leaving work and then getting on the train but after that her mind drew a complete blank. She'd been having trouble sleeping recently and she was so tired all the time, maybe that was why. She sighed and turned back to her sister.

"I don't remember," she said as if it were something that happened all the time.

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**Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed and all that other stuff. You guys do not know how much I appreciate it. :)**


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